


Take Flight

by CheatsatUNO



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dragons, How do I tag?, M/M, but I'm not, i feel like i should be sorry, impiled Johnkat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 02:49:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheatsatUNO/pseuds/CheatsatUNO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But at the end of your little trek, following more broken branches and finding more of the blue… whatever they were, you find a very… strange creature. You know exactly what it is; you’d have to be an idiot to <i>not</i> know what the hell that thing was. The problem was you never expected to see one. Why would you? Its large body was curled in on itself and its long tail wrapped tightly around it. Little patches of red oozed from where it’s bright blue scales must have been torn off as it crashed into the trees.<br/>“Fuck.” You mutter, breaking the heavy silence of the forest. Of all the things to find, it has to be a fucking <i>dragon</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It burns your skin as you slink away using the afternoon shadows to help conceal your form as you escape. This has to be the warmest you’ve been in a while and while you frown at the fact that it’s getting dirty from being in contact with your rarely washed body and shirt, your eyes sparkle with the promise of food. So you can handle the burn.

Ok, scratch that, no you can’t. Fuck, shit! Ow that really hurt. You take the stolen loaf of bread from under your shirt and hold it in your hand. This was not a well thought out plan. It hurts your hands now so you just hop it between the two grey appendages as you make your way home unseen. “Home” as it happens, is nothing more than a shed just outside the bustle of Lopah, your hometown. By “shed” you meant “a pile of wood held together by nails and miraculously still standing” and by “hometown” you meant “the place where trolls didn’t sneer at your very existence, well at least not all of them”. Oh yes, you were quite fortunate. You didn’t used to live like a rabid squeakbeast though. You used to have an actual house with a family to share it with. But there had been a very large fire, destroying most of the already small village you lived in. You’re father and brother had died and somehow you’re scrawny ass managed to escape.

Fat lot of good that did. You’d rather be dead most days but let’s face it, you’re a coward, you cling to life like it’s the last thing you have. Because it is.

Once “home” you set the cooling loaf on a stack of old books you’ve managed to collect over the sweeps—you’ve been in Lopah for about three—and take your hunting knife and cut off one of the ends. It was rare for you to get warm bread, you had to steal for most of your food or work odd jobs all around Lopah either for coins or food. There were a few kind lowbloods that pitied you—platonically of course—and offered you handouts. You only went to them when things got too bad.

The bread is good, crunchy on the outside and so warm. It’s nice. You wrap the prize in a small piece of cloth and leave to go explore. Just outside your home is the border to the Crimson Forest; a large wooded area named after the deep red leaves that clung to black branches. It was fun to explore when you weren’t working or stealing, kept your mind off of things. Sometimes you liked to pretend that when you went in, you’d come back out and somehow everything would be different, better. It wasn’t of course but whatever.

Your feet lead you to a well-worn path made courtesy of you, evidence from previous treks. It doesn’t take long to get deep into the trees seeing as how you know this place like the back of your hand. The sun is still up so you decide to go a little further, choosing to go left rather than right today. The black bark around you is honestly kind of creepy and the bright red leaves always unsettle you, reminding you of your mutation, but if you clear your mind, it’s almost pretty. Everything looks the same in the forest, in the beginning you couldn’t go very far for fear of getting lost but now the monotony of it calms you. It was always the same, no disasters, no problems, no change.

Well… except for today apparently. 

A trail of destruction starts up ahead of you: broken branches hanging limply from their sources, underbrush flattened, and little blue things scattered every few yards. You pick up one of the blue specks, its a bit smaller than your hand and is a bright, sky blue. What makes you drop it in disgust is the bright red staining it. Blood. Bright red blood.

A small shiver takes over and you look down the path of destruction, the red and black flora in a state of disarray and curiosity wins out. It doesn’t take long to reach the end of the disturbance, maybe five or ten minutes, but… it’s a bit shocking when you do. Along the way you noticed an absence of the featherbeasts that usually fly around the forest and sing their expectedly annoying songs. Today there were none, not even a stray rustle of the bushes to announce the present of some other creature. All was silent.  
But at the end of your little trek, following more broken branches and finding more of the blue… whatever they were, you find a very… strange creature. You know exactly what it is; you’d have to be an idiot to _not_ know what the hell that thing was. The problem was you never expected to see one. Why would you? Its large body was curled in on itself and its long tail wrapped tightly around it. Little patches of red oozed from where it’s bright blue scales must have been torn off as it crashed into the trees.  
“Fuck.” You mutter, breaking the heavy silence of the forest. Of all the things to find, it has to be a fucking _dragon_.

 

\--

 

There it is, a fucking dragon, lying—probably unconscious judging from how it hasn’t moved since you entered the small clearing—right there in front of you. A wild, majestic beast you’d only heard about in stories or gossip in passing around Lopah. This one was probably wild, a rarity, seeing as how it didn’t look like it had any riding gear. There is a dragon a few yards in front of you and all you can do it stare at it, open mouthed, in shock. You can almost feel your think-pan dripping from your ears. 

Its body is covered in bright blue scales but those soften into a pale blue underbelly. Its tail is actually pretty long, longer than you think should be normal and the bright blue color darkens into a deeper shade. A tremor runs down your spine when your gaze lands on the talons on both its front and back legs, tinted a bright yellow. The whole thing looks out of place with its background of crimson and black.

You don’t really know how it happened but somehow you ended up on the other side of the clearing and standing next to the dragon. It’s breathing, you can see the rise and fall of its chest, but it’s weak at best. The thing doesn’t seem to have noticed your approach and you find your hand reaching out to touch it.

That’s right Karkat, go ahead and touch the wild dragon. Pet it like the little meowbeast it so _obviously_ is. Despite your sarcasm you are now touching the dragon. It’s… surprisingly warm. The scales, you mean. Not cold like you always thought they’d be. You realize now the bright blue things you’d found along the way were its scales. Poor thing, you wonder why it crashed. Dragons were supposed to be very intelligent. Maybe this one was just stupid. Your hand is still placed gently on the dragon’s side when you spare a glance at its face. A deep, blue orb is staring at you, half-hearted hostility shining through. A weak growl escapes barely parted jaws, exposing the tips of very sharp teeth.

“Don’t you dare fucking growl at me.” You hiss back then shake your head. You just snapped at a dragon. What is wrong with you? Obviously something serious because the next thing you’re doing is walking away, in the opposite direction of where you came, and to a small stream you know runs not too far from the clearing. Once there, you take into account the clean water flowing lazily, the blue in severe contrast with all the surrounding red. Kind of like the dragon in the clearing, the same dragon whom you are now returning to with a sopping wet shirt cradled in your arms.

Its head lifts a bit when you return, and it growls again, eyes weary. Your own eyes rolling and you shiver at the cold. Jeez! You hadn’t noticed but now that your chest was bare and your shirt was soaking wet in your hands it was really hard not to notice the temperature. As you get closer to the dragon, it growls again but it doesn’t sound threatening, almost as if it’s given up and doesn’t care what you do anymore. Wow… that was pretty p- you don’t let yourself finish that thought and get to work on wiping the blood away from its body with your shirt.

It’s watching you carefully, interest painfully clear in its eyes.

“So… how’d you even do this to yourself? I thought dragons were supposed to be smart but you manage to crash-land in this shithole. Not too smart if you ask me but hey, you didn’t. Hey, don’t fucking look at me like that! I don’t have to help you, not that I even know if it’s doing anything…” You begin to trail off, every now and then starting up a one-sided conversation again. You don’t know if it understands you or not, if it’s truly wild it probably doesn’t and it seems too weak to shift into its other form.

After the blood is cleaned away you go back to the river and wash your shirt off and go home. That night, you lie on your relatively soft pile and think of the dragon. You don’t know much about them; you know that the Imperial Flight Squad use them in fights or for travel and more commonly dragons are used for racing. You also know they can appear in two “forms”. The first is their dragon state and the second being a strange, hornless, troll-like version. You drift off thinking of those dumbass blue scales.

The next day, you wake up and dazedly look around in your pile for medical bandages. You don’t use them often because you’re careful, you pride yourself in staying out situations where your putrid blood color might be revealed so you have plenty in stock. You take about half of what you have and take a bit of food too. It all fits nicely in a piece of cloth and you leave your little shack.

Judging by the sky, you have a few hours until noon, when you have to be back in town for one of your jobs, helping some burgundy blood butcher meat. If you’re lucky he might let you take some home. It’s been a while since you’ve had meat.

The forest is alive when you get there; the featherbeasts are back to their annoying usual routine of assaulting your hearing canals with their high pitched warbles. You make a few stops by bushels of herbs you’re familiar with and strip them of their leaves and roots and flowers. Arriving at the clearing, a large set of blue eyes glare and assess the short troll holding an armful of herbs. It growls and you huff in annoyance.

“Fucking stop you bulge-festering ingrate.” You snap and get closer. The growling continues but stops when you set down your load… You suppose you should at least explain what you’re doing just in case it can understand you… oh fuck that.

“Just keep your blue ass still, okay?” You hiss and you go back to the stream with your cloth and return with it wet. It takes a while but you manage to wash off its wounds again and apply what you believe to be the right herbs and wrap them in the medical bandages. You don’t know if what works on trolls will help with dragons but it’s the best you’ve got so the motherfucker better be grateful you’re even bothering. The whole time the dragon was watching you warily but at least he didn’t growl and stayed still. “There.” You sigh and plop down on the grass. It still eyes you as you take out two pieces of bread. You toss one piece to the dragon and take the other for yourself. It isn’t warm like it was yesterday but it’s still really good and you’ve got about half a loaf left at home. A cautious sniff deems your offering edible and the dragon practically inhales the morsel. Well then. It looks at you with wide blue eyes for a long moment then lays its head down. You stay there in the clearing for another hour before you gather your things and head back home and into town.

“There you are Vantas.” The burgundy blood frowns once you make it to the butcher.

“I’m sorry, sir.” You apologize gruffly—god you hate apologizing— and the troll snorts and tells you what you need to do. Your work is… well it’s better than starving so you won’t complain—at least not right now, you actually complain a lot. At the end of the day, the butcher tells you to go home and gives you a small amount of coin and a bundle of dried meat. You quickly thank him and go home in a relatively good mood for once.

It’s dark and the dried meat tastes great with a slice of bread and you are almost tempted to eat all of it but you somehow manage. You divide the rest into two small pile and wrap up one pile along with another slice of bread. That dragon asshole might like to actually eat a bit meat tomorrow…

 

\--

 

Well it’s official. It’s an idiot. You are an idiot. You two are a great big idiot duo and all the other competitors can go home. It has been a few days since you started regularly visiting the dragon and slowly it has been getting stronger and its growls have become more lively— yes, it still fucking growls at you _everytime_ you enter that godforsaken clearing but you think it might be more of a greeting now? Who the fuck even knows. It also has taken to making this warbling sound in the back of its throat whenever you leave and it almost sounds sad but when you turn around it just growls at you again and you yell a few scathing obscenities before leaving. You don’t know why you keep coming back but you do, you feed it and bring it water since the lazy fuck hasn’t really moved from its spot since you found it. 

The flashes of blue visible through red foliage warn you now that you are nearing the clearing. The second the dragon sees you, a growl rumbles from its chest but you notice its eyes are bright, lacking the threat and weariness it had when you first found it.

“Hello to you too bulgemunch. Yeah yeah, ‘I’m a dragon and I can growl at Karkat like the little shit I am because it’s not like the nice troll fucking feeds me or anything like that. Fucking outrageous assumptions being thrown around right now.’” This is how you know you are an idiot. You… may or may not carry on conversations with the blue jackass and it may or may not respond with its own growls and hisses. Like now, the dragon does something akin to an eye-roll and makes a snorting sound. You throw your hands in the air and toss it some fruit. It swallows it in a second. “At least pretend you have some god dammed manners.” You mutter as you plop down beside it. You practically pass out from how exhausted you were from one of your jobs that day with the added trek it took to get to the clearing the second you hit the ground and you lean on the dragon unthinkingly. 

You’d thought you’d get bitten or scratched or at least beaten with that damn tail that was now coming towards you… but you weren’t. Said tail gently wrapped around you and then it growled softly, turning its head away and completely ignoring you for the rest of your time there. It was a bit weird to be honest, all that body heat was nice but the scales were kind of odd when they were wrapped around you like that so you couldn’t sleep. But it was still, dare you say, nice?

After an hour of mindless, technically one-sided conversation you get up to fill the basin you brought with water. It takes a fuckton of time to drag it back since the weight fucking quadruples when you put water in it but it’s better than making fifty trips back and forth with only a bowl so that chute-stuffer can drink. When you get back, panting over the basin as some water sloshes over the rim and onto the grass, you notice something different about the clearing. It’s all red. No blue in sight.

Where the fuck did that nooksucking dragon go?!

“Hey! Listen here you whimsical little shit, I did _not_ drag this thing all the way here just to have you run off! Get your bright blue ass back here!” You yell into the trees. A few featherbeasts caw and fly away at your disturbance but besides that nothing. Fuck… You stare at the water and holy shit, do you actually look sad right now!? Why would you care if that thing flew off to never be seen again? Not like you had invested your precious time into its wellbeing or anything. No, fuck that. 

A rustle makes your ears twitch and your head snaps up to see what could be here, maybe it’s the-

_Oh._

Oh, it’s… naked.

Standing on the other side of the crimson clearing is a small, peach skinned figure with a mess of black hair and unmistakable blue eyes. But it is also naked and oh sweet lord is this something you do not want right now. That… is definitely a bulge but it’s almost the same color as the rest of its body and completely still and no no no stop looking. It was weird and creepy and yeah, you’re just going to take your shirt off now. Wait! That sounded weird!

“W-what, I- uh- cover yourself you indecent grub-fucker!” You throw your shirt at him—you recall a few things about dragons’ second form, their sex was determined by which genitalia they had; either a nook or a bulge—and he caches it on reflex. He stares at it; blue eyes confused for a moment before he finally lifts it over his head and slips it on. Thank every single real and non-existent deity that this form is smaller than you and your shirt, that is already somewhat baggy on you, drops down mid-thigh and covers his weird junk. Your face betrays your mutant blood color and you fight to control your blush, you mean, really! Did he not have a single idea about courtesy and that you should _not_ show up naked in front of people?

He looks really proud of himself and trots over to you. Up close you see that he is really short, about a head shorter than you. You were considered short by most troll standards but shit, he made you feel tall. He was also really small, a thin frame and he looked like he weighed nothing at all. He smiles up at you, exposing an unfortunate overbite. He lacks horns and his eyes are those same bright blue on a background of white.

“John!” He exclaims, beaming at his word.

“What?” An unimpressed raise of your eyebrows is all he gets from you. He pouts and thinks for a second.

“You are Karkat… and I John…?” He doesn’t seem so sure about his words now but you get it.

“Your name’s John?” A quick nod. “Stupid ass name if you ask me.” 

“Didn’t.” He huffs, annoyed. It takes a minute to realize he doesn’t have a complete grasp on your language, at least grammar wise. Hell, he might not even know too many words, if he was truly wild then no one would have taught him how to talk. 

“Yeah yeah, whatever. So I’m assuming that since you’re well enough to shift forms that means you’re better?”

“Yes, thank for… helping me. Very nice! Not like other trolls.” You quickly correct him and he repeats the statement the right way before something clicks. You look down at the boy and match up wounds and scars. His neck has a few healed over scrapes that probably transferred over from his crash injuries and his arm has a large scar on it.

“What other trolls?” John frowns and looks at the sky then back at you before answering. He takes a moment, running his hand through his mess of hair absently, thinking of how to say it.

“Chase me. Very mean. Not like Karkat. Try to… um… keep me? Scary with other dragons saying I be safe with them… but I not want to go with them. I, uh, try to hide in red leaves but crash.” You slowly correct him and he repeats the explanation like he did before and you think about it. Trolls with other dragons chased John, they tried to capture him so John—the idiot—thought it’d be a good idea to hide in the trees despite how it would only make it more obvious with the color contrast but he crashed because forests did not have ideal flying conditions.

“Oh.” You mutter lamely and John is looking at you expectantly then his eyes shift over to the basin of water and his face lights up and he hops over. He acts like a wriggler to be honest and you aren’t sure whether it’s endearing or frustrating. John drops to his knees and scoops up a handful of water and brings it his mouth to drink. He repeats this a few more times while you think. Who would chase John? You are honestly blanking on this because not many trolls had dragons; there were certain things that had to happen for a dragon’s egg to hatch. 

Lost in thought, you don’t notice that John is curled up at the base of a tree, dozing off.

“Oh hell no.” You growl and stalk over to him. It was one thing to leave a big ass dragon in the forest alone but in this form he seemed so vulnerable and helpless. So pitiful. You cringe inwardly at the term but it was the best way to describe him, his skin looked so soft, no way could he protect himself. John looks up to see you scowling above him and gives you a confused expression. “Come on dipshit, you can come home with me I guess. I mean if you want. I’m not going to leave you out here.” You avoid eye contact because his smiling face is blinding and he bounces up and hugs you. Ok no, he had no pants on and only a shirt, this was not ok so you shove him away with a small growl. 

John pouts, annoyed, and sticks his disturbingly pink tongue out at you and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Ugh,” you sigh, exaggerating just a bit. “Just follow me you little shit.” You narrow your eyes and he does the same before you turn and dump the basin out. John snatches it up like it fucking belongs to him and holds it to his body like you’d take it away from him. It occurs to you he’s probably trying to help by carrying it but it still peeved at you for shoving his half naked self away. You roll your eyes. “Dumbass.”

“Chute-stuffer.” He snaps back, surprising you. So he _had_ been listening to your aimless rants after all. At least you now know he understood most, if not all, of what you’ve been saying this whole time. That may or may not be a good thing seeing as how you seem to talk yourself in deeper and deeper holes sometimes. Most times. Always.

You simply growl in response and John follows you. He stumbles a bit over tangled underbrush and explains in his broken speech that he’s not used to walking. You wave him off but make an effort not to move so quickly. It takes a lot longer than usual but as you get closer and closer to your very humble abode, you start to feel self-conscious. You lived in a rundown heap of wood that somehow had not succumbed to the throws of gravity and collapsed and worked—and stole—your ass off to keep yourself alive. You started having second thoughts about not only showing John where you lived but also letting him stay there as well. This was a really bad idea. You just knew it and it was waiting to blow up in your face like things tend to do. 

John startles you out of your self-loathing reverie with a slight tap on your shoulder. You turn to face him and he looks worried, mouth twisted up and eyes sparkling with concern. “You are okay?” He asks.

“A better way to say that would be ‘Are you okay?’” You first correct because he was a pretty fast learner and like hell you’d deal with his bullshit language skills for much longer so you might as well teach him a thing or two. John nods and mouths the words to himself, as if locking them into memory and you puff out a sigh. “And yeah, I’m fine. Just… never mind. We’re here.” You say in a flat monotone and avoid looking at John. 

“Home?” He asks and raises a finger towards your “house”. Normally, that statement would be dripping with contempt or pity and you’d probably claw their throats out just to scrape together the last scraps of your pride but the way John says it makes you look at him. His face is soft and he looks in awe at your shack, like he’s never seen something so amazing.

“Yeah…” You mutter, confused and he smiles, dropping the basin and causing a loud metallic clang and grabs your arm.

“Show me.” He all but pleads and you take him inside. You show him what it looks like and he instantly burrows down into your pile.

“Dammit John, its barely past noon and you want to fucking sleep? I was right about you being lazy.” You scowl and the boy sticks his tongue out at you. You do the same in retaliation before his head disappears in the crook of his arm. His smaller frame is curled in on himself, cocooned by cloth and other miscellaneous soft objects you'd managed to get your hands on. He looks smaller like that and soon he is fast asleep. A book takes your mind off things for a few hours while you wait for your next job slot.

 

\--

 

Torture, that’s what it is. Pure torture. This was probably your least favorite job to do and you won’t even go into it now because it pissed you off. At least you got good compensation for it. You might actually do it more, seeing as how much you got paid, but it was a job that only needed doing every so often so the when the opportunity came about you took it with mixed feelings. You shuffle back inside your shack only to fall face first into the floor. A groan escapes you and all you can hear is John’s maniacal laughter. 

Not.

A-fucking-gain!

Your books were scattered now around your feet, the cause for your graceful stumble. This is the third time this week John has thought it “funny” to trip you after a hard day of getting his ass fed. You had soon realized that your new dragon friend likes to play “pranks” on poor, unsuspecting members of society and since he hasn’t left your shack since he got here save for trips out into the forest for fun, he has to take out his “pranks” solely on you. Fucking joy.

“You always fall for it!” John gasps between strangled rounds of laughter. Oh you’ll strangle him all right, one day in his sleep, and he’ll never see that shit coming. Fucking watch. 

“How many times do I have to almost impale myself on this dirty-ass floor and resultantly flip my shit before you realize, this is not fun! Only you find this funny. One of these days you’ll think it’s a good idea to drop all my books on my head the second I open the door.” John’s eyes flash mischievously as you scramble to your hands and knees and then to your feet. His laughter is calming down to muffled chuckles but you can see you popped an idea into his head.

“Fuck… John, please do not drop books on my head. You’ll kill me. That would be very bad.” You remind him angrily and John merely laughs.

“I do not want you dead, stupid. Just is funny! You is really funny.” John smiles at you, a mix between an act at innocence and pride in his sentence. You correct him and he frowns like he always does when he realizes he's said something wrong. He says the new dialog, trying to learn. You do have to hand it to him, he learned surprisingly quickly what with John always repeating Karkat’s correction and Karkat always making corrections.

“Oh! By the way, I got you something.” You say offhandedly, honestly you’d almost forgotten. Probably a sign that you were hitting your head too much. Thanks John. You rustle around in you tattered messenger bag that you used when you went shopping. It wasn’t often you had enough money to actually pay for things so the bag was often filled with random shit. John rocks forward onto his knees, anticipation clear on his pale face. The two of you were sitting on the floor near you pile, previously chatting idly. 

You pull out a deep blue strip of fabric from the bag; the bright newness of the color makes your bag seem even older and dirtier. You push that out of your mind for now and show John the gift. At first, the little shit has the gall to look confused though he really seems to enjoy the color because he can’t take his eyes off of it. His favorite color is green but you feel blue suits him better.

“It’s… um, a sash. You tie it around your waist so my shirts and stuff can fit better. And I also got you pants. They’re in here somewhere.” You fumble, throwing the fabric at his face and digging around the bag while avoiding looking at John. Shit, this was a bad idea. A stupid, bad idea. You remove the clean trousers from the inside of the bag and present them to John. Well you would have if he hadn’t practically thrown himself at you. John was small but really agile and fast as shit so you didn’t even have time to brace yourself before John is on top of you, arms wrapped around your waist and his head snuggled into your chest. 

Oh.

“J-John-”

“Thank you! I love it.” He squeaks, speaking slowly. You freeze, red coloring your face before bringing up a hand and carding your fingers through his troll-black hair. Your claws lightly scratch at his soft scalp and he hums happily.

“Yeah… no problem buddy. Now get the fuck off me.” You shove him off softly, making sure to be careful with aforementioned claws. You realized within the first two days of living with John that his pale, creamy skin was just as weak as it looked. John pulls away with a big smile plastered on his face and he touches the spot where you had been rubbing earlier on his head. You… you really don’t know why you’d done that.

“That was good by the way, what you said. No mistakes.” John has to lean closer to hear your mumbled praise but reacts as though you’d yelled it. He bounces to his feet quickly and does an odd hopping dance before snatching up his new pants and sash and bouncing as far as he can away from you in the limited space of the shack. John shimmies in the dusty corner, cobwebs hanging above his head, and pulls on the pants. The soft grey color actually looked really nice on his pale skin with your oversized shirt. His fingers fumble a moment before wrapping and tying off the blue sash.

Shit.

He looks… good. The blue pops out amongst the monotone grey and black and it makes his already unbelievable blue eyes shine. John notices you staring and raises an eyebrow before spreading a devious grin across his features.

“Put that eyebrow down right now before I rip it off and shove it up your squishy pink ass.” You snarl and he sticks his tongue out before trotting over and sinking down into your pile. “Oh hell no, scoot over. There is no way I’m letting you take all the room tonight. You either share _my_ pile or sleep on the floor.” You threaten, growling and shuffling over to the pile.

“Bulge-licker.” You administer a quick smack on the back of his head for the comment. He really needed to stop using troll insults. It always felt a bit weird, like he should be using other words instead. John makes a sound in the back of his throat and tries to scramble away but you hold onto the blue sash. 

“Sit the fuck down. It’s late ass maggot so go to sleep.” You pull him back into the pile. John makes a face of disgust.

“Ew. Gross.” 

 

\--

 

“John?” A head pops out from under your pile, he’d snuggled down under all the rags and blankets again. You couldn’t really blame him, it was starting to get colder and just as you predicted, his weak skin doesn’t fight off low temperatures very well. You think he might fare a bit better in his dragon form but he says he’d rather not shift forms. Apparently it takes energy, energy he didn’t have.

You plop down near him and hold out what you’d brought home today from the butcher. A few dried strips of beef and a few berries you’d gotten from the forest. John takes what he knows is his and eats it readily, finishing it within minutes. You finish yours after his because even hungry you still have more manners than him. John’s belly groans at the lack of more to eat and you frown. Shit. 

“Karkat?” John looks up through thick eyelashes at you.

“Yeah…?” You hesitate. You already know you won’t like this conversation.

“I’m… I am hungry. I… er…” John fidgets, his fingers playing with each other as a distraction.

“Yeah… I know buddy. I’m sorry.” John’s head snaps up at your tone and he hugs you. John was really affectionate as you’ve learned but you’ve gotten used to it. Even started returning the gestures somewhat reluctantly. 

“I’m sorry.” He says and you rub your hand up and down his back comfortingly. He shivers and you know he must be cold.

“Come on dumbass, let’s get you warm and rested.” You grumble and drag him back into the pile, covering the both of you and tuck him into your side. He’d end up burrowed there later on in the night anyway, looking for something warmer.

You don’t know how long you stay awake after John drifts off but you start thinking somewhere along the line. John was a dragon. You… didn’t know that much about dragons. You knew the bare minimum and that was only what you remembered from your father telling you when you were very young and from what you’ve heard in Lopah. 

A long time ago, Skaia was plagued by large creatures, tentacled monsters that were vicious, dangerous beasts called Horrorterrors. It took dozens of highly trained fighters to take one down and there used to be a hell of a lot of the bastards. The old story your father used to tell you was that a troll found something one day in a cave. It resembled a large egg, shiny and iridescent. A thousand colors shone across the shell and it was warm to the touch. When he picked it up, it glowed to life and shook, cracking open. 

The result was the first dragon known to troll and this mystery troll discovered a use for the creature: their effectiveness against Horrorterrors in battle. Dragons could fly and breathe fire, offering aerial attacks on the giant creatures that threatened life in Skaia. This troll spent sweeps searching for other eggs and was said to have found four more. They hatched and he trained four trolls how to handle them. Together these five fought Horrorterrors and were seen as heroes throughout Skaia.

Horrorterrors were more like ghost stories until recently. You’d heard talk that there might be one around. It’s not like Horrorterrors were extinct or anything, it’s just when one was discovered it was usually taken out before it could do any damage.

Sometimes you have to remind yourself that John is a dragon and not some weird kind of alien from another universe or something equally far-fetched. He was a dragon, proud and strong and powerful. He could fly and breathe fire. He was also an incurable idiot.

Your incurable idiot. 

But not really, someone had to have hatched him. You’ve never heard of a dragon hatching on its own. He’d had someone before you and you just have no fucking inkling of a clue what happened to that troll. You almost wish you did but then you remember that no, John is yours now. He’s your friend and no one else can have him.

This makes you smile. It’s been a long time since you’d had a friend.

 

\--

 

God you hate doing this… you really do. That olive-blood may be nice and all but you really hated taking freebees. She always offered you food whenever you came by—which you only ever did when you were fucking starving to death—and it never sat well with you. Pity. It was pity getting you fed right now. But it was for John so it was okay? His stomach has been making a nuisance of itself the past two nights and fuck if you were going to let it keep happening. John started going to bed with frowns on his face and he was getting thinner than he already was so you had sucked up your pride and went to the olive-blood for food. 

You were on your way home now, walking with your head down through town with a basket of sandwiches in hand, white wisps of breath floating in front of you as you sigh. You never really pay attention when you go into town, Lopah never really sees much action anyway so what’s there to miss? Things are apparently different today. Outside of the Enforcement office there is quite the commotion. Well that’s unusual.

“Excuse me, what’s going on?” You clear your throat and tap on the shoulder of the nearest troll in the crowd. The troll turns to you and looks down—tall motherfucker—before rushing into an explanation.  
“Haven’t you heard? There’s a dragon! Now shush, Captain Xerxes is talking.” The troll puts a finger over his lips and whips back around towards the Enforcement office. You can’t really see anything on account of all the bodies so you walk around until you can find a gap big enough to peer through.

Holy Shit.

The four trolls standing very proudly at the focal point of the mass are wearing the official Imperial Flight Squad black and gold uniforms. The one that you assume is Captain Xerxes is standing in front of the other three as he speaks. His eyes shine cobalt and hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and he’s wearing the fucking hat and oh my god you are about to wet yourself because the fucking IFS are here, _right_ in front of you! You adore the IFS, you mean, who _doesn't_? 

The Imperial Flight Squad were specially trained Dragon Riders, graduated from the only Dragon Flight school in all of Skaia and were employed to Her Imperial Condescension. They were basically the law of the land right under the Condesce herself; if there was a Horrorterror, an emergency, anything important that needed to be done quickly and expertly these guys were the ones who handled it.

“… immensely helpful if anyone who knew anything about the dragon would step forward and give us any information they had. A large reward of five thousand gold will go to the troll who helps us find it. We remind you not to go near it as the dragon is wild and fairly dangerous.” Xerxes informs the crowd as you tune into his announcement. You immediately tune back out once he mentions how much money they are handing out a reward. That… was a lot of money. You wouldn’t have to worry about anything for a long time, you’d be able to relax and eat well and get new clothes and better items for your pile and-

Wait. Dragon? They had to be talking about John right? It’s not like there were a lot of dragons running around on the loose after all. That’s when it clicks. It was these guys that must have been chasing John when he came up with the bright idea to escape into the Crimson Forest. The IFS were trying to capture John, probably to train him or whatever it is they did with rouge dragons without partners. They’d probably take him to the First Guardian Flight Academy, the number one—and only—flight school in Skaia to be given a partner and trained.

They were looking to take John away… away from you. You... you could not let that happen. No matter how much money they offered or how much better off you’d be… or how much better off John would be. He’d be fed three meals a day at the FGFA… sleep in a real bed and get the things he needed.

Wait! What the hell were you thinking? You shake your head quickly and scurry away from the group, heading home. There was no way in hell you were giving up your only friend. Even if your time together had been short you were really close to him. Despite the pranks and the arguments you had, you really cared about John. A small voice in your head whispers that if you cared about him then you’d give him up. That you can’t care for him properly. What if he got sick with some weird dragon disease and you couldn’t do anything to help him? What would you do?

You promptly tell the voice to fuck off because you took care of John just fine. Sure he was hungry and cold but he was happy… right? He always smiled when you came home so he had to be right? Why would he laugh like an idiot and smile and snuggle up to you like a wriggler if he weren’t happy?

As you walk through the slanted doorway, John sits up with a yawn and rubs at his eyes and offers a drowsy smile.

“Sleeping all day again asshole?”

“Mhm, get bored waiting and I’m still not too good at reading the books. They have big words. So you have to teach them to me.” He stretches and speaks slowly. He was getting better at speech you’ve noticed.

“Well I have food so perk up.” You show him the sandwiches and he snatches one from the basket and devours it. It must be really good because he looks at another one like a meowbeast would eye a squeakbeast. You roll your eyes and hold take out the one he was staring at and hold it out. “Come one, there are plenty in here, just eat it and stop acting like your lusus dropped you on your head.” John nods and takes the food, eating this one slower, hopefully actually tasting it this time.

“How did you get all this?” John asks around a mouthful of bread, meat, and cheese.

“Don’t talk with your fucking mouth open you animal! Christ, learn some damn manners.” You throw your hands up in the air. Grammar he can do in a week, reading takes no time at all, but god forbid the boy learn to eat without making your own food turn in your stomach. John frowns, eyebrows furrowing, but he closes his mouth and chews slower like you’ve showed him _a thousand times before._

“So?” He prompts once he finishes.

“Never mind it John. Just come over here, I’ll read something to you.” You pick up a book and John grabs a few blankets from your pile to wrap around himself. The threadbare cloth doesn’t help much and he still shivers so you put an arm around him and hold up the book so both of you can see and he lays his down on your shoulder. You start reading and John follows along, asking what words mean along the way and complaining about your taste in books once again. You keep reading, ignoring his shudders every now and then. You don’t realize it but you’ve made your decision and it’s not at all about the money. They’ll take good care of John. You’re sure of it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! Mid-terms, am I right? anyway, here's the second chapter. I hope its as good as my sleep-deprived brain thinks it is

“Where are we going?” John asks for probably the hundredth time, looking around Lopah with a confused gaze. The red stone buildings look nothing like your hovel and the trolls walking through the streets can be heard and occasionally seen through dark alleys. You were taking him to the Enforcement office where you would then hand John over to the IFS members staying there and you were sure to take as many back alleys and shadowed routes to stay out of prying eyes. It wasn’t hard to tell John was a dragon, the color of his not-ashen skin was a dead giveaway and you’d be damned if you let some grub-fucking random ass troll steal John from you and turn him in. If you were giving up your best friend then _dammit_ you were getting paid for it. 

“Don’t worry about it John. Everything will be okay. You’ll be okay.” You tell him again, sliding your thumb over the back of John’s hand soothingly. He grips your hand harder and you tug him forward, connected by your hands as you lead him through a dark, narrow space and towards the main street. You were almost there, you can see the Enforcement office from where you stand, poking your head around the corner of the building you have John hidden behind. The street is somewhat cleared, at least it’s not busy and as luck would have it Captain Xerxes is talking to another IFS member outside. “Come on.” You urge softly and take John out into the street. John beams, looking around the main street excitedly. His eyes dart from stand to stand, store to store, and troll to troll. His whole being is buzzing with energy.

“Are we going shopping, Karkat? Are we? Why are we here?” John hops next to you, whipping his head back and forth and causing trolls passing by to stare. John has also gained the attentions of the two IFS members.

“Jesus John, shut up will you?” You roll your eyes and John sniggers, squeezing your hand fondly. Shit. You’re really starting to regret this now. But no, he’d be better off with trolls that could take care of him.

“Excuse me, is that-” Captain Xerxes starts and normally, you’d eviscerate yourself for interrupting him—an IFS captain deserves all of your respect dammit—but you don’t want to hear the rest of his sentence. You know what he wants to say anyhow.

“Yes.” You say, causing the adult troll to blink in faint surprise and then smile. He turns back to his companion and nods his head. She goes inside and comes back with a tan sack that looks fairly heavy and is tied off neatly with a thick piece of string. John’s confused expression is back full force but he’ll understand soon enough.

“Well, congratulations. Here you are.” Xerxes takes the sack and hands it to you. You have to let go of John’s hand to hold it properly and holy shit this was a lot of money. You use your shoulder to nudge John towards the cobalt-blooded adult and that is when he finally understands.

“Karkat?” It sounds almost betrayed the way he says it. Xerxes places a hand on John’s shoulder and grips it with what looks like a bit too much force as if he thought John would flip out and try to run away. Well that was a stupid precaution. John wasn’t like that.

Wait.

Nevermind.

John squeaks and jerks away from Xerxes and you, he’s backing away slowly and Xerxes barks out an order to the female troll that had brought out the gold coins. She runs inside and returns with the other two IFS members. Xerxes’s advance on him is slow, and the female troll—you think Xerxes called her Affura—starts to lead you away, telling you in a rushed voice that you should get away. Once you have been backed into a wall she deems a safe distance for you to leave on your own, Affura turns to the crowd and tells them in a more commanding voice to evacuate. You wonder why they are being like this then you look over to see a familiar gleam of bright blue scales.

Oh.

John had shifted forms and was growling at Xerxes and another troll are trying to get him under control. It seems the third troll is trying to go back inside, probably to get something to restrain John but he notices and his unusually long tail twitches before he swings it and sends the troll flying into the side of the building.   
Oh shit. This was starting to get out of hand. John is growling dangerously at Xerxes and his sharp, stark white fangs are glinting and you never thought John could look so… well scary. His growls reverberate through the air and send shivers down your spine and just like when you first saw him you find yourself walking towards him.

He doesn’t notice your advance, too focused on Xerxes, but the second troll is shaking his head at you, eyes wide with worry. You ignore him because what did he know? You knew John, he wasn’t like this. You come up behind him and place a hand on his side, his scales move violently as he breathes hard and hisses and growls. John’s head whips around to you at the touch and Xerxes yells something at you but John’s snarl drowns it out. This snaps you out of your trance.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, growling at me like that? Calm the fuck down you gigantic, blue asshole!” You snap, narrowing your eyes and twisting your mouth up into a sneer. John growls again but its softer and he makes a sound that could be an annoyed huff. His tail lashes for a moment before coming around to wrap around you protectively. No. Possessively. He nuzzles his big head into your side and you struggle to push him away. “Get your dumbass off of me you wriggler.”

“E-excuse me, Karkat was it?” Xerxes takes a step towards you, a look of absolute shock on his face. John glares at him and growls again. You elbow him in his side as hard as you can. It doesn't do much because damn, those scales were pretty thick.

“The fuck did I just say? No one is going to hurt you.” John still growls at Xerxes but it’s softer this time, like he’s still unsure about something and his tail moves you closer to him. “Or me.” You add and this seems to work because he stops growling. The death glare he gives Captain Xerxes thought stays where it is but there really isn’t much you can do about that. You sigh and return you attention to the cobalt-blood. “Yes, that’s me.”

“Um… you seem to have quite the hold on him?” Xerxes hums, an unsure smile on his face. He looks vaguely interested. Well, you don’t doubt that what just happened was pretty uncommon. “Almost like partners.”

“Well… he’s pretty stupid, I’d hate for him to do something stupider than he’s used to.” You shrug and John takes this moment to shift forms and holy shit does it feel weird since he’s practically wrapped around you. After an awkward second he grabs onto your arm and shakes it violently.

“I’m not stupid!” He whines.

“Then what was that spectacularly stupid show you put on? Hm?” You flick his forehead. 

“Ow!” He glares at you and you glare back, Xerxes stares at you two, intrigued. “It was not stupid. You were abandoning me…” His frown turns sad and he has on this kicked barkbeast expression.

“No John, no I wasn’t. These guys will take you to a place where they can feed you a lot better than I can and you’ll have a nice place to sleep and all the things I can’t give you. Right?” You look to Xerxes.

“Of course. The First Guardian Flight Academy treat dragons with the upmost respect along with their partners.” Xerxes nods, eyes alight.

“See?” You rub your hand through his hair, making a mess out of his already unruly locks but he still looks upset.   
“Fine...” John trails off, hesitant to believe you and hugs your arm. Xerxes clears his throat and John scowls at him.

“We must be leaving soon, would you mind keeping an eye on John while we prepare riding gear? We’ll need him to shift forms for the trip. I’d also like to have you accompany us on the way to the school to placate him if he acts out again.” He pauses, giving you time to answer. You nod and he continues with a smile. “Bestil will accompany you until it is time to depart.” Xerxes explains and you nod. He leaves to talk to Affura and sends over the troll that had been trying to get you to run from John after he sent the other one flying into a wall—Bestil you assume—before he goes into the Enforcement office. You lead John away to the nearest food stand: a meat vender. You order four skewers of meat and pay the troll with your reward money. Two go to John and you enjoy the rest.

“Thank you,” John grins, perking up as he launches himself into a hug, throwing his arms around your neck. You sputter, trying not to drop your meat skewers—the fatass had already devoured his—and the IFS troll, Bestil, chuckles.

“Affectionate isn’t he?”

“Fuck off.” You snarl and lead John over to a clothing store. Most trolls didn’t really give two shits about fashion but you really didn’t want to show up at the First Guardian Flight Academy looking like you and John both did. John choses a light blue tunic and dark blue leggings to match the sash he insists on wearing even though it’s a bit dirtier now than it was when you first got it. He picks out a pair of yellow boots that lace up to the knee and does a twirl once the ensemble is complete and you’ve paid for it and a new pair of your own clothes. Simple grey pants and a black sweater.

The clothes suit him and are oddly familiar until you remember that these are the same colors as his dragon form, right down to the yellow tinted claws now represented by his boots.

“Yeah yeah, come on you clever little shit. I get it, same color scheme in both forms. Put your tongue back in your mouth you incurable douche. What the fuck did I say? Dammit, we’re leaving.” You argue with John who argues back much to Bestil’s enjoyment and you drag him out of the store after paying.

“The riding gear must be ready by now. We should head back.” Bestil says, glancing down the main street to the Enforcement office. Outside waits three dragons and the three other IFS members are waiting next to them. “He should probably shift forms now.” The adult troll adds as the three of you get closer. John does just this after you nod to him, he really doesn’t seem to like listening to the others very well. John shifts and Xerxes catches sight of you and waves you over. The troll that had gotten knocked away by John’s tail glares at both you and him, muttering to himself.

“Thank you for this Karkat. You can ride with Affura on her partner, Laney. Sotter rode with her on the way here but he’ll be riding John for now.” Xerxes explains. You nod and tell John to behave himself and hop onto Laney, a dragon with about three different shades of pink on her body and a green, scaled underbelly. Affura smiles at you and picks up the reigns that you guess help guide a dragon in flight. Everyone hops onto their dragons and meanwhile, Sotter is having trouble mounting John and getting into the saddle like thing that had been placed on his back along with the rest of the riding gear.

Apparently John keeps flicking his tail at Sotter and still remembering what had happened not an hour ago, the troll flinches. After his third try, Bestil throws his hands up into the air and hops off of his minty green dragon. Bestil tries to get on but John nearly bucks him off. At least this time he’s not acting out of violence so no one is hurt. Right now he’s just being an ass. Bestil remounts his dragon and Xerxes is next to try. Now is when John actually growls. Okay, enough is enough. You slip off the saddle on Laney and Affura gives you a curious glance as you stride over to John.

“You guys must be doing something wrong, no disrespect, I mean you guys are awesome and all but John isn’t that difficult to deal with.” You explain, placing a hand on his side again.

“Well then you ride him if he’s _so_ easy to deal with.” Sotter sneers, glaring at you like he’d really enjoy watching John buck you off. Your eyes narrow and John growls.

“Shut up.” You mutter to John and start to get on. It’s a bit harder than it looks but mostly because you’re shorter than the others and John really isn’t trying to help you out but he isn’t trying to make it harder either. It takes a minute and few grunts but you are soon settled the saddle on his back. If looks could kill, Sotter would have your bright abomination of a blood color all over his hands. He looks like he absolutely loathes you. Affura and Bestil look shocked while Xerxes is making his way back to his dragon, a skip in his step that shows his entertainment.

“Alright Karkat, it looks as if you’ll be riding John to the school. Sotter, you’ll be riding with Affura again.” Sotter mutters something under his breath and slides into place behind Affura. Xerxes then explains the how to work the controls and you are buzzing with a nervous excitement. You never thought you’d actually ever be riding a dragon! It was only a dream you had sometimes and even then it was always just a scene from one of your favorite books played out with yourself instead of the protagonist. Once Xerxes is satisfied with his explanation, the others lift of and the sound of beating wings accompanies the swirl of wind as the other three dragons rise. You do as Xerxes said and soon you and John are rising as well, of course you had to add some curses into the process because the smug bastard didn’t want to fly. But as you rise off the ground, the soft jingle of gold offers music from the bag on John’s saddle where your money now sits.

It’s colder up here, high above the ground and you’re glad your new sweater is warm. Xerxes calls out to you over the howl of the wind and the rhythmic beating of wings that they’ll lead you to the school and not to fall behind. This doesn’t become much of a problem because you have no room to fuck up. Xerxes stays in front to lead with Affura and Bestil keeping their dragons on either side of you. John doesn’t seem to like the idea of getting any closer to either dragon so there is no fear that he’ll run into one even if they weren’t keeping heir distance. John’s only job is to not fall behind so you don’t get a chance to try out any of the things Xerxes taught you about the riding gear so you opt to just rub absently at the base of John’s neck.

It’s amazing. It really is. You don’t understand how the adult trolls can look almost bored. The sky is a soft blue, vibrant but not cornea-searingly bright. Just right. Pale clouds catch the sunlight and illuminate. Downwards, towards the poor souls that are stuck on the ground, everything looks so small, like a wriggler’s masterful set up of building blocks and toy trolls. It almost makes you giddy, oh who the hell are you kidding? You’ve probably got the biggest, stupidest grin on your face right now and that’s probably why Affura keeps sneaking looks at you and laughing.

After a while you can start to see why none of the other trolls looked too excited to be up in the air. It is a long way to the flight school and even though the scenery is breathtaking, it’s a bit repetitive. The sun makes its high arc over the sky and the only entertainment you get is watching the sky change color. It's shaded a pretty purplish-orange on the horizon when you notice Bestil waving at you. He points down and you see it.

The First Guardian Flight Academy.

Wow.

A large mansion—or maybe a small castle might be a better way to put it— sits in the center of a large circle of the greenest grass you’ve ever seen with a tall wall surrounding the grounds in a large, perfect circle. Even taller spires sprout up from equidistant points on the wall like sentries. The school is made of varying shades of obsidian, the sloping roof being the darkest shade of black. You see a small forested area on the west side and a huge, circular track near the south wall. At what you assume is the front of the school, there is a grey stone fountain in the shape of the International Flight Squad’s symbol: a single dragon’s wing with a long neck curving up from the bottom and the head pointed down. In the center of the fountain there is a round-looking object, suspended high above the spitting jets of water on a pedestal. You don’t know what the fuck it is because it’s glowing? You don’t really know but it sparkling and throwing off different colored lights at skewed angles.

The closer you all get to the ground you start to notice a group of trolls around your age and more squishy-skinned dragons. The first thing you take in about them as you land is that not all of them have the same pale cream color as John. You see one with dark skin and another with an olive tone. Weird. John shifts almost immediately after you slip off somewhat ungracefully. Xerxes and Affura—who you are assuming is high up in the ranks because she seems very involved in decision making with Captain Xerxes—walk off towards the school and leave you with Bestil and Sotter.

You look around and estimate about twenty troll students looking at you with varying degrees of interest. Suddenly a girl—holy shit yes, she’s shorter than you, even if only by an inch or two—hops over to you. You flinch away at the wide grin she gives you. She’s wearing the school uniform, a white button-down under a black school jacket and a matching skirt, both with gold trimming. She’s also got teal leggings that are tucked into her riding boots that also have teal laces. You’re starting to think she might by a teal-blood. 

“Who are you?” She speaks finally, her voice high and obnoxious.

“Why the fuck should you care?” You bite out, giving her your best “I don’t give a fuck” look but she barely even notices it because she gets this devious grin.

“Ooh~ touchy touchy! I only asked your name. I could have asked why you smell so delicious but I thought I’d save that for when we’re better acquainted. What color blood do you have? Smells even better than burgundy.” She leans forward and what the fuck was this crazy bitch even talking about?! John hugs your left arm protectively and growls at her. She stops her advance and raises a hand to tip down her pointed red glasses to reveal eyes just as red. Not red like they would be if she were an adult but her whole eye was bright red. As bright as your blood. 

“Yo, Rezi, stop harassing the civilians.” Says a boy with pale blonde hair and black shades that cover most of his face. He wears the male version of the female troll’s uniform with a teal tie. He must be her dragon but god does the drawl in his voice make you want to punch him.

“Civilians?” Rezi(?) turns to him.

“Yeah, can’t you tell? He and his dragon pal aren’t harmonizing. He didn’t hatch the blue kid.” Shades McDouche says as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. The nearest trolls give small gasps and whisper to each other. You know what he’s talking about though. Trolls and their partner dragons had an almost palpable bond between them formed when their hearts “harmonized” and the dragon’s egg was hatched. This kid and his teal-blooded partner had that.

“Hmm, oh well. So tell me your name or I’ll have to call you by how you smell. Cherry and Blueberry seem to fit.” She gives a downright dangerous look and smiles.

“Fine!” You throw your hands up in the air. “You fucking win! It’s Karkat. And this clingy jackass is John. Are we done with introductions?” You seethe, John stifling a giggle at your outburst. The little fuck loved it when you threw a fit. Apparently so did she.

“Terezi Pyrope!” She jabs a thumb at herself and nods to her partner.

“Dave.” He says simply, like he thinks he’s too freakin’ cool to put any more effort into it.

“Overjoyed,” You deadpan. You want them to skip the fuck off but they have other plans and Dave slips over to John’s side.

“Yo.” John squishes farther into your side and you have to shake him off. John looks at you and back to Dave before nodding in greeting. John and Dave stare at each other for a few minutes while Terezi talks your ear off and you start to wonder if it’s how dragons get used to each other or something like that. After three minutes of nothing Dave pushes his cheeks up into a smile with his pointer fingers and sticks his tongue out at John. John, mentally stunted as he must be, finds this amusing and tries to do it to Dave too. Dave leans away and John gets this determined look on his face. He lunges for Dave but Dave disappears for a second only to reappear a few feet away. John’s eyes get big and you’re a bit surprised too.

“Flashstepping, bro. Pretty cool right?” John nods frantically and tries to catch Dave as he flashsteps around him. “Hey, why don’t you talk? Can you talk?” John suddenly closes up and nods.

“I don’t talk very well.” He almost whispers. You execute a perfect facepalm. Was he really embarrassed about that? It’d be cute if it weren’t actually kind of stupid.

“I think you talk fine, bro.” Dave ruffles John’s hair and John flushes red in indignation.

“Don’t do that! You’ll make it messy!”  
“I really don’t think anything I do can make it any messier than it already is. Oh, wait, never mind. I was wrong.” Dave adds as he rubs his hand furiously through John’s hair, reaching easily because of his height advantage. John swings at Dave but he simply flashsteps away, laughing. 

“Hey look!” Terezi brightens and nods her head to the two approaching trolls. Dave stops flashstepping and does the same. John takes this as his chance to lunge at him again but you grab in by his sash and pull him to your side, hissing in his ear to calm the fuck down. He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, muttering his barrowed obscenities—the one’s he’d learned from you.

“Karkat. Congratulations. You are now a student of the First Guardian Flight Academy.” Captain Xerxes announces, spreading his arms wide in a dramatic gesture.

“E-excuse me?” You choke out once you find your voice. Affura smirks.

“We talked it out with Headmaster Hussie, you seem to be the only one that can keep a hold on John. None of us could even mount him.”

“Not even Captain Xerxes?” Terezi says in awe. Xerxes shakes his head then a spark of recognition shines in his face.

“If it isn’t the Little Pyrope.” Xerxes pats her shoulder pleasantly and you notice a different kind of flash on Terezi’s face. You like to consider yourself a master at all things romantic, able to make sense of even the most complex aspects of troll romance and if you couldn’t notice the obvious flush crush Terezi had on Captain Xerxes then you might just have to hang yourself from the roof with your own bulge. It was that obvious. Well to you at least because either Xerxes was so used to it or he, like most of the trolls you’d come in contact with, had no idea how to tell. It’s probably the latter.

“Headmaster Hussie will take care of all the expenses and has arranged a room for you. You’ll need a uniform so he’ll send someone to take measurement before dinner. Have fun.” Affura hands you a slip of paper with the words _**ROOM 612**_ scrawled on it in swooping ink and a silver key on a black string. She gives you a playful wink as she and Xerxes walk back to their dragons.

Once they all leave, gliding into the air, a small riot ensues. Whispered yells of outrage and confusion burst into the group of trolls.

“He can’t join.”

“What about the entrance exams?”

“He didn’t even hatch his dragon! That’s cheating.”

The last one came from the sneering face of a boy about a head taller than you and sporting an indigo-blue neck tie. He takes a step towards you and you think he might just punch you in the face but a loud snarl comes from your left side and John has that look again, the same way he had when he was growling at the IFS members after he’d shifted into his dragon form. Dave’s face changes behind his shades into what might be mild surprise but it doesn’t compare to the look the blue-blood gives John. He backs away, his dragon catching him before he can fumble and fall. 

“Damn, kid.” Dave snickers and John snorts and drags you away from the crowd with Terezi and Dave following, sharing smiles. Once you are out of earshot from the slightly calmer group of students and dragons, John lets go your hand and turns to face you with a small frown.

“I don’t know where we are going.” He admits and Terezi busts out into a full on cackle. Dave might be rolling his eyes but you can’t tell and he holds out his hands and motions towards the piece of paper still clasped in yours. You give it over hesitantly.

“Room 612, huh? Hallway 6, first room, second floor.” Dave says.

“That’s what that means?”

“Yeah, nine rooms in each hall, three floors, and 6 halls on each floor. The rooms are pretty big so you share one with your partner.” Dave explains, but honestly that didn’t sound like enough for such a large school. Dave must catch your incredulity because he sighs and continues. “Come on, you do know there aren’t that many students here, right? The entrance exams kill.”

“What are the entrance exams?” You ask as Dave and Terezi lead you through the large doors and into the school. The inside is even more magnificent than the outside but you tear your attention to Terezi as she starts talking.

“Well first you have three tests that make sure you’re smart enough. Not just anyone is allowed in here. I passed with flying colors because I had originally wanted to apply to become a Legislacerator in the Royal courts in Alternia.” Terezi’s chest swells with pride, “So those were no problem. Of course before that is a physical exam.” You silently thank the universe that you’d gotten to skip that part, if you blood had been discovered not only would you not be allowed to enter the school but you’d probably—most definitely—be culled on the spot for your mutation.

“And then those who make it past those parts go into the Incubator. That’s the big room where they keep all the dragon eggs. It’s really warm in there, for the eggs, so everyone calls it the Incubator. Inside there are all different kinds of dragon eggs, all set up on pedestals. You just wait there and walk around for a while, checking out all the eggs until one speaks to you and I mean really speaks to you. You have to be one hundred percent sure that that is _your_ egg because if you pick it up and it doesn’t hatch, you have to wait until next sweep and do it all over again. That’s why Devrit—the troll that John scared off,” She nudges John playfully at that point, “was so pissed. He’s only a first level but he took the exam twice because it chose the wrong egg. I on the other hand had no troubles. I smelled Dave here the moment I stepped foot in the Incubator!” Terezi boasts loudly, almost falling backwards down the stairs. Dave catches her with a swift movement and scowls.

“You forgot your cane.” He growls. Cane?

“What? You know Noir hates when I bring that. I can’t fly with it well either.” She reasons.

“Why does she need a cane? Can you not walk good? You do fine to me.” John asks. You correct his grammar—“Well, not good, you uncultured dick”—to which John frowns at you but you see him repeat it silently to himself anyway.

“She’s blind, dude.” Dave shrugs, looking curiously between you two.

“Yup! As a nighttime wing-beast! But I can _smell_. I use that instead. It’s how I see.” Terezi explains poorly and to be honest you think if she ever tried to go into detail about it you might shove the nearest object into both of your hearing canals. John doesn’t look like he understands either and he opens his mouth to ask but you and Dave simultaneously shake your heads at him.

Finally up the stairs, you keep talking as they lead you down a wide corridor and stop at the sixth hallway down, it ends up being on the right since each hallway alternates sides with the first hall being on the left. All the while you were talking about why Terezi had come to this school if she actually wanted to be a Legislacerator. She waved it off like it was no big deal and proceeded to tell you that her older sister, Latula Pyrope went here and graduated with amazing scores and went on to become a member of the IFS. So Terezi, always in competition with her sister, decided to forgo her dreams and come to make even better grades and one day become captain of her own IFS unit like Xerxes because her older sister wasn’t anywhere close to becoming even a second in command yet.

Personally you think it’s stupid as all hell that she did that just to outdo her sister but you behave like a good little troll and keep your opinions to yourself. Besides… she seems happy here and she did become partners with Dave. You try to think of who else might have become his partner if she hadn’t come along. He might even still be in the Incubator. Oh god dammit, you were getting that way again. You really need to stop reading romance novels because they gave you a skewed view on life and made everything really sappy. 

“You should sit with us at dinner. We’ll find you okay?” Terezi says once you reach your room, the rooms like the halls alternate sides with each new one.

“Whatever.” You mutter and open the door with the key. John bursts inside and jumps immediately onto one of the two beds. He rolls around on the sheets and you might hit him later but it’s almost funny and you decide you won’t because you’re also excited. A bed, and actual place to sleep. Dave and Terezi say their goodbyes and leave you alone, closing the door behind you. You sit on the bed on the other side of the room, closest to the attached bathroom.

“Dave wasn’t kidding! This is huge!” John smiles as wide as Terezi and bounces on the bed. 

“Alright chuckle-fuck, calm down and do something with your hair.” You scold and he whines but heads off to the bathroom anyways to marvel at the mirror and the sink and you have to explain the ablution trap to him and not for the first time you wonder who hatched John and if they just fucking abandoned him or some shit because he knew almost nothing.

You occupy your time while John busies about the room and creates a fluffy little pile from the _all_ the pillows and blankets in the room by lying on your now sheetless bed and doing nothing. You didn’t have any of your books because they were all back in Lopah but you think they had a library here so you’re kind of excited about that. You imagine what kind of books they have when a light rapping on your door brings you back to full awareness.

“Come in.” You call in a low tone, too comfortable to move. The door opens and you have to do a bit of maneuvering to lift your torso up so that you are now sitting properly on your bed and can see the tall female troll and her partner. John’s head pops out of a hole at the top of his cocoon of stolen pillows and bedspread. 

“You must be Karkat and John.” The troll speaks and the first thing you notice besides her mismatched horns is her tone is very light and elegant. She spoke with purpose. She was thin and lithe and even standing still it was as if she demanded your attention like a particularly fine piece of art. Her partner beside was almost the same despite the air of sardonic superiority that surrounded her. Their leggings and laces were jade. “My name is Kanaya and this is my partner Rose.” She gently sweeps out her hand to gesture to the pale dragon with white-blond hair and troll black lips. Her eyes are a strange lilac and you are starting to think all dragons have weird eye colors.

“Hi.” You respond curtly. Rose offers you a slight nod and turns to John, smiling softly.

“Hello Rose.” His voice is mumbled by all those damn pillows. 

“Quite a fortress you’ve constructed.” Kanaya muses, half entertained. You roll your eyes and turn to John.

“She’s right. Last time I checked those weren’t all yours you selfish douche.” A slight pause from the newcomers at your tone.

“Don’t be stingy.” John teases in a sing-song voice. Rose whispers something to Kanaya and the troll nods appreciatively, smiling.

“Whatever but I swear if you don’t give my half back by tonight I’m going to lock you in the bathroom.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wanna fucking bet?” John frowns and you know you’ve won this and you don’t care if you just embarrassed the hell out of yourself in front of Kanaya and Rose because you- WHAM!

...That little fuck just threw half of his bullshit pile at your face and you are now squirming under what feels like ten pounds of bedding. You can hear him laughing through the layers and the sound of muffled chuckles that must be coming from one or both of the girls.

“You know what? I’ll deal with you later. Is there a reason you came here or was it just as a friendly 'let’s get to know the new guy' shtick because besides that blind chick you’d be the first.” You growl once you manage to uncover yourself.

“Actually,” Kanaya takes a deep breath to calm her laughter and looks to Rose who pulls out a tape measure, “we’ve come to take your measurements for your new uniforms. I’ll also need to know your blood color for your laces and neck ties.” She takes another step into your room. You snort and stand up.  
“Just get this over with.” You sigh and John follows your lead and stands as well. Rose goes over to him and Kanaya attacks you with her tape measure, wrapping it around practically every part of your body and getting pretty uncomfortable at times when she had to measure your upper thighs. “How are going to remember all this later? You aren’t writing anything down.” You point out after a minute of silence. Well on you and Kanaya’s part. John and Rose were chatting it up, the former apparently getting more comfortable with talking around strangers since Dave. You don’t pay them mind but you do catch parts of their conversation when Rose uses a word John doesn’t know and he has to ask and Rose is more than willing to define it for him and offer synonyms and antonyms. 

“I can assure you that Rose and I have excellent memories.” Kanaya speaks and after another minute or so she pockets her measuring tape. By now, John and Rose are sitting on his bed and Rose is teaching him some tongue twister that makes him sound like even more of an idiot when he tries to say it. “Now for your blood caste.” Kanaya smiles politely.

“Yeah, I’d rather not.” You cross your arms and glare at her. She gets this look on her face that reminds you of a mother talking to an especially stubborn child.

“And why not?”

“Because it is ,and will remain to be, none of your fucking business.”

“You’ll never make any friends if you keep that sort of attitude.” She says after a second.

“I don’t want friends.”

“Karkat?”

“Oh dear god, what do you want John?” You moan and turn to face him.

“What is the color of your blood?” You sputter and give him a wide-eyed “what the actual fuck” look.

“What hell is with the sudden interest?”

“Rose asked.” Rose shakes her head slowly, looking disappointed in John; well the joke was on her for trusting the idiot.

“You sneaky little…” A deep sigh escapes you. This was utter bullshit. “You know what? Fine. Burgundy, happy now?” You look at Kanaya tiredly and hope she buys it. She does and smiles at you, satisfied.

“I am, in fact. I understand you do not want to make friends but I would encourage you come with me to dinner. It will be starting soon and the first floor and can get very hectic and confusing when it is crowded with students.” Kanaya offers and walks to the door stopping only to look back at you.

“Sure! Let’s go.” You glare at John for his outburst and he hops up off the bed and looks at you with his too blue eyes. “Please Karkat? I… ugh, implore you!” John looks to Rose and she nods approvingly. What, were they having little vocabulary lessons over there or something?

“Well since my life is spiraling out of control anyway I don’t see why not. Take the lead.” You might be blowing this a bit out of proportion but in your defense, you were never what some would call a “people person”. Kanaya smiles and Rose and John join her in the doorway.

“It wouldn’t hurt for you to call me Kanaya, Karkat. I find that I might actually like it.” She turns on her heel in one graceful movement and Rose follows her. John looks after them and then back to your stationary form before grabbing your hand and dragging you out of the room.

 

 

“Yo.” Comes the familiar voice of Dave over John’s shoulder who squeaks. “Oh, sup Rose. Kan. You met Karkitten too?” You almost choke on the air around you at that nickname and you really want to choke the shit of him and his shades but Terezi appears to your right and starts nudging you towards an empty table. It happens in a swirl of motion but you somehow end up sitting in a chair with John on your right and Terezi on your left. It’s a small miracle that none of the food you had from the kitchen had fallen.

“I had assumed you were the ‘blind chick’ Karkat mentioned earlier” Kanaya takes a dainty bite of whatever it is she got while John is shoveling it in. You hear him yelp and straighten up with a stern glare from Rose who sits across from him and whom you assume just kicked him under the table. John starts copying how Kanaya eats and you nod gratefully to Rose.

“Aww! Karkles was talking about me? How sweet!” Terezi cackles and coos in your ear.

“What in grub-fisted hell is with all these new nicknames? My name is Karkat!” You groan but soon give up when Dave goes into a weird monologue that you will spend the better part of your life trying to delete from every part of your memory. 

A high, bubbly voice interrupts the rest of whatever Dave was saying and then _she_ sits down at your table. Holy shit. You really think you might never stop being surprised today because right across from you now sits the Empress Elect, Feferi Peixes. The youngest daughter of the Condescension herself. She grins at you and shows off her sharp little teeth. Terezi scoots over to the left to make room for a tanned dragon girl sit in her place. She settles in beside you and smiles at you too. John doesn’t seem to like this much and a small growl comes from your right and he’s glaring at her. A tan-skinned dragon appears frm behind Feferi and snarls back, you slap the back of John’s head.

“Don’t you dare get me in the middle of some stupid argument that doesn’t involve me in the first place.” You scold him. Feferi _tsk_ s her partner as well, saying it was rude and that John was probably just being territorial and that she was sitting too close. You don’t really understand that bit but whatever, John needed to fucking behave.

“Sorry a-boat that. I’m Feferi! You must be Karkat. A lot of people have been talking a-boat you. The civilian that was escorted here by the IFS and then admitted. You’re big news around campus.” Feferi starts. Great, so much for staying low.

“I… uh,” You stutter and Terezi giggles on the other side of the dragon girl. Feferi also chuckles.

“Don’t worry a-boat formalities. I’d reely like to be fronds.” Feferi, you see, likes to make fish puns. Fucking great. You nod despite yourself.

“This is John.” You point to John who has resumed mimicking Kanaya’s eating habits. Kanaya has noticed and finds this very amusing. Dave has also started doing it except his pinkie finger has seemed to excused itself from the rest of his digits as it sticks out no matter what he’s doing. He has also turned to speaking in an annoying proper tone—“Terezi dear, please pass me some salt. I fear this meat is rather tasteless.”—and John has to fight off his laughter.

“I’m Jade.” Says the green-eyed dragon beside you and like John and Rose, her eyes are an impossible shade. For the next half hour, you find yourself hesitantly enjoying the company of these trolls and their partners—except Dave . Jade also has plenty to say on your language and how grumpy you are. You flick her off and John hits you because apparently he and Jade are best fucking friends now.

“So do you think the rumors about the Horrorterror sightings are true?” Jade asks excitedly towards the end of dinner. 

“I don’t think so. The IFS take care of those things pretty quickly.” Terezi waves it off and takes a bite of her dessert and quickly launches into another topic. “And speaking of quickly, that race is coming up pretty fast! Next week! Are you two entering?”

“Of course!” Jade claps her hands together happily. “And we’ll win too! Just like we always do!” She and Feferi high-five over the table. 

“Not if we have anything to say about it.” Terezi huffs crossly. “Dave blew the last race.”

“Maybe if you tried not to steer me so close to other riders, I wouldn’t have to slow down.” He tells her in an unimpressed tone.

“Dave! I wouldn’t hit another rider! That’s against the rules! I’m no rule breaker. I was just… scaring them a bit.” Her frown grows mischievous and she starts to cackle. 

“Scaring me more like.” Dave sighs, concern for his blind partner showing through his indifferent mask. John tilts his head to the side.

“What race?”

“Oh.” Kanaya clears her throat. “Every now and then, the school puts on a race where teams can sign up to compete. There is a very large track, usually used for classes, you must have seen it when you were above the school this morning. That is where it takes place. Five laps around and that’s it. It is a very fun event to watch. Rose and I usually remain spectators. You and John should join us for the next one.” Kanaya explains and as she does, John is starting to bounce in his seat.

“Can we compete Karkat? Please?!” He begs and you shake your head.

“Hell no, John. I barley know how to use that dammed riding gear. We are not racing. We can sit with Kanaya and Rose.” You respond and his face droops a bit. Oh well, it’s not like you were going to embarrass yourself in front of the entire school. No, fuck that.

“Don’t worry, John, we’ll be using the track tomorrow for classes anyway. I can bring you your uniforms an hour before classes begin.” Kanaya consoles. “Since Karkat, Terezi, and I are all first levels, we’ll have all the same classes.”

“I’m a second level. Sorry.” Feferi shrugs. So she was older than you, you wouldn’t have guessed based on how she acted. The rest of the night is uneventful and you only leave the table when John starts yawning. You excuse yourself and you actually find yourself unwilling to leave. You guess they weren’t all _that_ bad… except Dave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so levels are basically grades, like a first year or second year but since trolls go by sweeps (and first sweep doesn't sound very good) I just called them levels. also, happy birthday to me!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh, sorry it took so long to get this one out.

John has got to be the laziest dragon alive but it might actually just be you in this one instance. You never did sleep well and you were so used to getting up early to do shit for food that sleeping in was not an easy thing for you. So when you wake up two hours before Kanaya is supposed to show up with your uniforms you are hard pressed to find something to do to occupy your free time. John is fast asleep in his bed, snoring lightly and fidgeting around in the covers. Funny, he never used to fidget.

You walk into the bathroom and take a long, hot bath, reveling in the luxury. You waste about forty-five minutes in the bathroom playing with all the soaps and bubbles and putting some effort into brushing your hair. When you finish you actually look civil and your hair is no longer a mess of skewed angles. By the time you walk back into your room John is staring at your bed, confused. His eyes spring up to you and a sleepy smile crosses his face.

“What are you doing up?” You sneer. You only have a towel around your waist because you don’t feel like getting dressed only to do it again when Kanaya gets here.

“Couldn’t sleep.” He yawns and stretches before falling back onto the bed. Unfortunately for him, he misses the bed and tumbles to the floor dragging half of the sheets with him. Fucking genius.

“Bullshit,” you spit out, going over to help him up despite your tone. “You were dead to the world over here half an hour ago.”

“You left.” He says like it’s the most obvious thing. It isn’t. You have no idea what that is supposed to prove or mean so you just drop it because you know from past experience that a sleepy John makes less sense than an awake John. “What were you doing?” He asks once he’s on his feet again.

“I was taking a bath. You should too by the way. Come on.” You drag him to the bathroom and explain how the work the shower and what to do with the soaps and then abscond because you did not want another run in with his weird downstairs situation. You start fixing the bed because there isn’t anything else to. You bend down to scoop up the soft, navy blue comforters from the ground—the beds were really the only splash of color in the otherwise boring room, probably a way to avoid offending different blood castes—when you hear the water in the bathroom start and a delighted squeal when John figures out hot water. He’s babbling about it, grammar going to shit in his excitement and you can hear muffled mentions of you name through the door so you just call out “yeah”s every now and then in response. After twenty or so minutes, the room is clean and you knock on the door.

“Come on, John. Time to get out.” You hear a muted groan and after a few more frustrated knocks the water stops. “Good, now wrap a towel around your waist.” 

“Okay,” he says after a minute and you walk in. He’s still dripping—fucker didn’t dry himself off first— and looks at you expectantly. You tell him to sit and he obeys, taking a seat in the small vanity stool poised in front of the counter and wall to wall mirror. You brush his hair because he refuses to do it. He doesn’t like the way they pull at the tangles in his hair so you force it on him. He whimpers and curses you the whole time and it doesn’t help when you take time to slap him or yell. You don’t realize how long it’s been until you hear a soft rapping from the room door during a quiet period when John has chosen to scorn you instead of argue.

“Come in, Kanaya.” You call, hoping that’s who it is and you didn’t just invite Dave and Terezi into your room while you’re essentially naked. For some reason, even if she does meddle a bit, you don’t mind it so much when it’s Kanaya.

“Karkat, you should really start opening the door for guests. It’s polite.” She speaks as she enters, taking no time to find you in the bathroom. The door was open so it wasn’t too hard. She looks highly amused to see a fuming John having his hair brushed. Rose comes in behind her rider with two wrapped bundles stacked in her arms.

“I was kind of busy.” John makes a snide remark under his breath and you pinch him. He yelps. “Anyway, thanks. Now get the hell out so I can change. Unless you’d like a full show, but I charge for those.” Rose rolls your eyes and Kanaya quickly drags her away and out of the room. You chuckle and toss John the package that has his name carefully scrawled on it in black ink. The two packages are covered in a thick, brown paper and tied of with thin string. After closing the bathroom door with a command to John to change, you pull the string and open up the paper to reveal five identical sets of the school uniform. The burgundy tie and shoe laces catch your focus. You notice four pairs of riding boots near your door and get dressed quickly.

All the while, muffled sounds of dissent can be heard from the bathroom before finally you hear, “Karkaaaat! I need help.” _Great…_ you are unwilling to do it but you drag yourself to the bathroom and open it, fearing the worse.

“What do I do?” John asks pathetically and you laugh. Right in his face and he scowls. John looks absolutely ridiculous. Thankfully, he has his pants on correctly but his shirt and jacket are buttoned improperly and you should have known he wouldn’t know how to tie a tie because he tried to tie it around his waist like his blue sash which now rest at the foot of his bed along with his other clothes. After choking for air and gripping the counter for support, you regain control and John looks like he could hit you. You raise an eyebrow in challenge and he lightly taps you. This almost makes you laugh again because he’s obviously afraid you’ll hit him but he’s so pissed he touched you just to prove he could. It’s almost cute.

With little objection from you idiot dragon, you redress his upper half with little incident and help him into the boots you decided to lace out of boredom.

“Well you two took your time.” Rose huffs impatiently and you flick her off. Kanaya frowns and you shrug, okay, so riders were a bit defensive over their dragons. Note taken.

“John couldn’t figure out that ties go here, instead of down here.” You explain, gesturing to the proper anatomy. John crosses his arms and tells Rose to take him to the dining hall for breakfast. You watch as they speed off through the halls—Rose only hurrying because John was stalking away quickly. You bet he didn’t even know where he was going. Kanaya opens her mouth to questions but you wave it off. “He’s just upset because I laughed at him and I brushed his hair. But really. He should be grateful. It actually looks half decent now! Don’t worry. By the time we eat he’ll be over it.”

“If you say so. You know him better than I do.”

“I really don’t. He’s been a bit weird this morning. He was restless in his sleep and then he said he didn’t sleep well and his excuse was because I left.” At this, Kanaya breaks out into a pleased hum. “Care to share, Kanaya?” You prompt, she obviously knows what’s up.

“If this keeps up, I wouldn’t be surprised if you two actually formed a Bond. Though I’ve never heard of it before with a dragon and someone other than who hatched it, John is definitely acting the way Rose and many dragons behave after making a Bond with their partner. He probably woke up because you left the room and he couldn’t feel your presence as strongly. Newly partnered dragons are often extremely clingy in nature. If this is, in fact, the case then there is nothing to worry about. John should grow out of it soon enough.” Kanaya still looks very pleased when you enter the dining hall. You really doubt that. He was always a bit clingy and you might have spoiled him a bit too. Just your luck.

Breakfast is good, Terezi joins you halfway through and when asked where Dave was, she answered simply that he wasn’t a morning person. You run into Feferi and Jade in the hall on the way to class, she was accompanied by another sea-troll and a yellow blood with red and blue glasses who seemed to be arguing. Their dragons reminded you, oddly enough, of Rose and Dave, though they looked older. Feferi offered your group a quick wave before trying to auspitize between the two boys—“Sheesh, Sollux! No fin-pulling! We’re going to be late to class. Mr. Scratch is going to krill us.”—and taking off in the opposite direction. 

“What was that all about?” John asks.

“Quadrants, John.” You say and he shuts up immedietly. You’d learned very quickly that he didn’t understand your difficult and detailed way of romance so John tended to stay away from the subject. 

Outside, the sun burns brightly but offers no heat as the cold winds make you all shiver. The grass is lush and green and a trampled path shows where students have chosen to walk instead of on the stone walkway. The path bends around the front and side of the school and you get another view of the fountain in the courtyard. The egg-shaped stone in the center of the fountain almost blinds you with its multicolored light show. From Terezi’s description yesterday you guess that it is supposed to be a Dragon’s egg. Once out of sight of the bright refractions of light you stare in awe at the track set up as your class for today.

As you saw yesterday, it’s a large dirt oval that covers a great expanse of the field. A little ways away from it are what you assume to be stables and storeroom. The door is sung open and a man stands in the opening, looking irritable.

“Looks like we’re doing an obstacle course today.” Rose muses as you get closer and you look, noticing for the first time all kinds of elevated obstacles set up. Nets, pillars, large boards with dragon-sized holes cut out, and a few others are set up around the track. John is buzzing with energy and like you predicted, he’s forgotten to be upset with you and is hugging your arm. There are already students there when you get there but from the intolerant way the man you assumed was your teacher was tapping his foot you figured there were still a few stragglers. 

One of the students already present was Dave, hair slightly ruffled on one side and he didn’t look much more relaxed than your teacher did. Not a morning person indeed. John finally lets go of your arm and hurries over to Dave, who groans once the excited boy starts talking. John frowns and pokes Dave’s sides. This causes an abrupt reaction from the other dragon and John notices right away and assaults Dave’s exposed sides with wiggling fingers. You can hear Dave’s curses from here and Terezi howls with laughter.

 

\--

 

“Alright, as you assholes can obviously see in front of you, today we are going to be avoiding shit. Now go get your damn gear and get ready. I’ll give you ten minutes before I start deducting points from your grade.” Spades Slick, your teacher, growls before making an obscure gesture and sending the class off to the stables where the riding gear was kept. Each compartment of gear is labeled with a number in a specific color—blood color—and you see the number 21 painted in a dark red at the very end. Well not really the end, there were several other stalls after 21 but they were all empty. You go to the stall and look around, no one else seems to care about it and the slight nod from Kanaya tells you this must be your assigned gear. Wow, this school worked fast on getting you settled.

Once outside again, you notice John was the only dragon that had gone into the stables and remains to be the only dragon that is… well that doesn’t look like a dragon. Dave, Rose and the others in the class have all changed. Rose, a bright orange and yellow number, catches your attention right away. She is smaller than Dave and is a bit thinner than John. Even in this form, she seems to hold herself with a certain elegance. Dave, however, is a large red dragon and an underbelly colored to match your false blood color. His back is lined with boney ridges that remind you of gears that rise up from the base of this neck and to the end of his tail which is considerably shorter than John’s. Aforementioned dragon having caught on to what he was supposed to be doing and changing forms stands close to your side as trolls make their way to their partners. 

Now comes the hard part. Unfortunately, when John had been equipped with riding gear the other day you had not been paying attention and now had no idea what the fuck you should be doing. You try sneaking glances at Kanaya and even Terezi—how the fuck did a blind troll manage to do this better than you even if it was your first try?!—for hints on where things clicked and belted and how to set it all up. And John, despite how genuinely you are trying to do this, is being the little shit you’ve grown to tolerate. If you do something wrong, which is fairly often, he’ll flinch and wiggle around and basically fuck up all of your previous effort. You end up yelling at him more than once which causes its fair share of staring. You’re pretty sure riders didn’t yell at their partners. You’re also pretty sure that because of the bond formed through the hatching that partners had a deep understanding of each other and could do simple things like this with ease. But you were also pretty fucking positive no one else had to deal with John so they could all go and happily fuck themselves.

You’re so busy arguing with John that you don’t notice that everyone else is done and is waiting on you. Spades apparently has had enough and storms over to you and smacks your hands away from the harness you’ve been trying to shove onto John’s face.

“Dammit kid, I’d like to get this class started sometime this sweep.” The man puffs himself up and normally people didn’t scare you but your teacher looked like he stabbed strangers for fun. John noticed you start to cower as he moved towards you so most of Spades Slick’s statement was drowned out by John’s harsh warning growl. You could Rose stiffen and a few more students do a double take. John stares daggers at Spades as he carefully steps away.

“Shut that shit up, John.” You growl out to your big, blue idiot. The sound coming from his jaws diminishes until it’s only a slightly threatening rumble in his throat. That’s probably as good as it would get. “S-sorry.” You mutter. Everything is quiet until Spades dismisses everyone to the track to get started on the lesson.

“Listen here, you little fuck, you need to keep a better hold on him.” Spades jabs a finger bitterly at John. “You can’t have him acting like that. Now pick up the fucking harness.” Spades snaps and you do as he says as he and John glower at each other. He then proceeds to explain exactly how to set everything out. John always seems to act better when under close watch as if to show them how good he can be for you. But even that causes a few problems because he thinks being good for you is not moving so you have to tug and pull to get him in the right positions for what you need. It takes about twenty minutes of careful—if not hateful—explanation and finally John is ready.

“Okay, John. You’ve embarrassed me enough this morning. Please try to behave.” You groan as you slide into the seat placed snugly on John’s back. He makes a whining sound and you imagine him rolling his eyes with some sarcastic comment and snort. You tell him to shut the fuck up and get started.

It is immediately apparent that the two of you are not on the same page on the whole flying thing. You still remember the basics of steering from Xerxes’ explanation of it yesterday so that isn’t really the problem. The problem stems from the fact that you and John have different ideas of avoiding the obstacles. You come to a minefield of tall wooden pillars that plague a good portion of the track. You and John fight on how to avoid them—“No, dammit! Right, you nook-humping imbecile!”—and even though John never hits anything he stutters and stops midair to argue with you through growls and snapping, barked noises. After that isn’t much different, struggling for control over what movements to make and when, John hits his wing while going through the hole into the large bored blocking the path.

You are the last to make it back to the class and you wish you hadn’t. Mr. Slick can hardly contain the obvious disdain he feels towards you and shows it snidely.  
“Well, well, well. Is your intention to hinder this class completely or are you trying to blow us all away with how amazing you can handle your ‘partner’ tomorrow? I’m dying to know which it is, Vantas.” You don’t answer because you’re caught between blowing up at him and submitting to the verbal abuse. “Just get the fuck out of my class because I’d like to actually teach today.” You can feel John vibrate with the beginnings of a snarl but kick him before sliding off. “Don’t come back until you’re ready to not fuck everyone over with your incompetence.” You take the gear off of John and he shifts almost immediately as Spades goes back to talking to the others. Terezi, Kanaya, Dave, and Rose are all sending you sympathetic glances while some others snicker or shake their head. You throw the riding gear down into your stall and stalk away from the class and into the building, John at your heels.

You are both silent as you wonder around the school until John fucks it up.

Shocker.

“Karkat? Um…where are we going?” 

“Nowhere.” John flinches at your curt tone and nods. After another minute of silence he tries again.

“Can we go somewhere?” You sigh and turn to face him tersely, causing him to run into you. He takes a step back.

“Where? Where the fuck do you want to go, John? Take me there if you want to go somewhere so badly.” You snap and you know you shouldn’t be getting so upset with him but fucking hell, he can’t even leave you to mope in peace!

“Okay.” John seems to brighten up a bit, still timid but hopeful and starts off in another direction. A deep sigh fills the empty hall and you follow him. You follow him down several corridors and even fallowing him back down some of the same ones as he loses his way and then picks up the trail again. He stops in front of a heavy-looking set of double doors. A sign hung above them telling you what lies beyond. Your eyes flick over to John and he smiles brightly. “You like books right? You had a bunch back home. Rose said the library had a bunch more than you did. So I thought…” John trails off, looking at his feet before finishing. “It might cheer you up.”

You don’t answer him; instead, you sweep past him and enter the library. It’s empty sans a few students that must be in higher levels than you. John trots in after you, not saying a word. The room is huge, two stories with the same number of staircases leading up to the upper landing, one on each side of the library. The walls are lined with dark wood shelves and each shelf is packed with books, old and new. Bookcases create rows on the first floor only to open up in the center that has tables spread out for students to read at. A few trolls and dragons occupy the tables with books piled on the table, studying, or lazily reading for pleasure. 

You walk around and through the rows of books, picking out a thick book every now and then. All the while, John is following after you, unsure if you’ve forgiven him or not. You let him know when you go to a secluded part of the library and pull up a chair right next to you and motion for him to sit. He does and the second you are seated he is clinging to you in a hug. You roll your eyes and sigh.

“John,” You are careful to remove him and make sure he is looking at you. “We need to come to an understanding. Got it? No repeats of today.” John nods slowly, paying full attention. “Good. You need to realize, I am your rider. I control the reigns so I decide where we go and when. Got it?” This time it takes a minute for John to agree. He scowls but, upon seeing how serious you are, relents. He nods hesitantly and you let him go. “Good. Now leave me alone. I’m not making a fool out myself again tomorrow.”

John takes a look at the book Karkat picked up and started reading, expecting it to be just like the ones he’d had in Lopah but he was a bit surprised to see it wasn’t. You see John look at the other books piled in front of him. All books about riding and dragons and shit like that. It wasn’t anywhere close to getting hands on experience but it was ten times better than going in blind tomorrow. John watches you read for a good thirty minutes before getting bored and scooting his chair closer. John cuddles up into your side, resting his head next to your elbows as you lean over the table to read. He’s practically sitting in your chair and he’s a bit too close for comfort but he seems too content so you leave him be. It’d almost be cute if he weren’t such an annoying prick all the damn time… but even then it still makes you smile a bit as you read.

 

\--

 

“Karkat?” Kanaya asks as you sit down at the table that is already occupied by your friends. You hum absently, letting her know you heard. The jade-blood clears her throat before continuing. “I am well aware of your prideful nature but I would like to offer myself as a tutor of sorts. To help you in your classes, flying especially.”

“Really?” Your head snaps up and anyone at your table who wasn’t already watching the exchange is now paying attention. John wiggles next to you, not completely comfortable but you don’t know why. It may be because of all the staring and shocked gazes at your hopeful tone or it might be because of that territorial thing that John seemed to feel recently at all the attention you were getting. 

“Well yes,” Kanaya recovers for a moment and you can’t really blame them, all you’ve ever been around them is surly and irate. You’ve had yet to show them that you aren’t as much of an asshole as you like to think you are. Right now your eyes are wide and flitting over Kanaya’s pretty face in search of any deception. You don’t find any. Wow, you really weren’t expecting anyone to offer to help you. Reading those books and having that talk with John surly helped a lot but that was nowhere close to actually having someone help you. Kanaya is the perfect one to do it too; patient, kind, and she always seems up to deal with your bullshit moods. “I wouldn’t offer if I weren’t serious.”

“Wow… thanks Kanaya. That’d be a big help.” You smirk and nudge her with your shoulder affectionately. She seems to like this and smiles brightly. The moment was almost pale if it weren’t for the jealous little prick that was scooting closer to you and whining about how he was tired. “John, I don’t think you understand. I don’t care. Go up to the room if you’re tired. I’m hungry so I’m going to eat before I even think of going to bed.”

“Hmph.” John huffs but he doesn’t make a move to get up from the table and instead starts talking to Dave.

“Karkat, how would feel about a lesson of sorts tomorrow during after classes?” 

“Sounds great, Kanaya.” You nod and turn to your food because you weren’t lying. You really were hungry from being cooped up in the library all day. You’d unfortunately skipped lunch due to the fact that you’d dozed off for an hour at some point, no help from John seeing as he’d fallen asleep long before you had.  
You wake up the next morning and get dressed with much less hassle from John, who now knows how to put on his uniform correctly, and leave for breakfast early. You are later joined by Terezi, Feferi, and Jade.

“Well you’re here early.” Terezi waves at you before sitting down, not even fumbling with the seat. How the hell did she do that? You shrug in response and go back to eating.

“John! I had this wicked dream last night!” Jade plops down next to him and you try to ignore the conversation but the effort crumbles when Jade starts telling him about the dream.

“It was really weird. A Horrorterror attacked the school and no one was there except all of us. We had to fight it but I woke up before I got to the end so I don’t know if we won or not.” Jade seems to deflate at the thought of having a dream end on such a cliffhanger. 

“Don’t worry Jade. I’m sure we win.” John enthuses.

“Won. Past tense, John.” You correct suddenly. John just nods and you can see him repeat the sentence correctly even if he isn’t turned towards you. Jade gives you a strange look but lets the topic go as Terezi goes into a dream she had about overseeing a trial with Dave, saying it was the perfect intimidation method during an interrogation and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it earlier. Kanaya and Rose join you halfway through and soon enough Feferi and Jade are leaving for their classes while you and the rest of the first levels head outside. By the looks of the track you are still on the obstacle course. Upon your arrival, Spades practically growls at you but doesn’t say anything.

“Alright, glad you could all make it today.” Spades starts the class a few minutes later. He puts a snide emphasis on the word “all” and you know it’s directed at you. “We’re doing the same shit as yesterday so I expect to see improvement.” Once again, shooting straight for you but you know you’re going to do better. At least you really, really hope you do. Spades dismisses you all to the stables and John stays outside with the rest of the dragons though you can tell he wants to follow. You come back out with the gear and take a deep breath.

John is transformed and being perfectly still for you. Although it isn’t as helpful as he thinks it is, it’s a lot better than him squirming with your every mistake. Which you still make a lot of by the way and you are still, by far, the last one to finish. But you didn’t need any help and you are positive everything is in its proper place based on the look of pride Kanaya beams at you. 

“What are you all waiting for? Get going!” Spades blows his whistle and everyone is off in the instant it sounds. John on the other hand seems committed to listening to you and only you so you have to tell him to go before he actually moves. 

Powerful beats on bright blue wings send you up into the air and towards the first obstacle. With the way things are now, it’s hard to imagine you ever getting used to the feeling of flying; it’s simply amazing every time you take off. Three times and you were already hooked. You lean forward gently and stroke the base of John’s neck reassuringly.

“Ok buddy, we’re coming up to those pillars. Let _me_ lead here. Got it?” John doesn’t nod but he makes a sound that you interpret as an okay. “Good.” You enter the minefield and begin swerving left and right; however, it doesn’t take long to figure out that the course isn’t the same as it was yesterday. Thick, horizontal planks of strong wood blocked your path at varying heights and from the looks of it they kept going throughout the rest of this part of the track. “Well fuck.” You curse before maneuvering John to go left and above a tight spot. That choice was a mistake because there is practically a wall of pillars in front of you that you have to yanks John to the side to avoid, causing his tail to slam against one. He whimpers softly and you start to murmur out apologies.

It takes you a while to get out of that part of the course because you start trying to look ahead to avoid getting stuck like that again but you finally clear that part and get on with the rest of it. This time around, everything is a little harder than last time but you manage to make it through in one piece. At least John hadn’t gotten hurt again. That was a plus. 

When you land, everyone else is already there but you don’t think you took as long as yesterday. John wasn’t fighting against you and your judgment; instead he was pliable and easy to work with so that should have worked in your favor. Still Spades Slick comes stomping up to you once you land.

“Do you like wasting my time, Vantas? Because you do it a hell of a lot,” He sneers and you can feel John tense under you. “We’re running the course again so try not to take so long. Could you do that for me?” Spades turns on his heel and blows his whistle. It’s a reflex when your foot nudges John into flight because you are in a daze. Spades didn’t kick you out of class. Today is already leagues better. Now that you already have a loose feel for the track you actually don’t fall to far behind. Of course you’re still last but Spades actually doesn’t even yell at you this time and instead snaps at someone about getting caught in the net.

 

\--

 

“What are we doing first?” John asks Kanaya as she leads the small group of four to the track. The course is still set up so you have a feeling you’ll be doing that.

“Karkat is going fly with you.” Kanaya says as if it were obvious, which it is. John smiles despite the glare you send his way.

“That sounds fun! I like flying. Can we not do the net? I don’t like that one.” 

“Don’t worry, John, you won’t do the net.” Kanaya doesn’t stop at the stables and strides right in and to her stall. Rose stays outside and quickly shifts. John follows her lead as you retrieve your gear from your stall. The first half hour consists of tediously arranging the gear on John and then taking it back off only to set it up again.

“Kanaya,” You drawl in a whine. “Come on. I’ve done this five times already.”

“Karkat, before you learn to walk, you have to crawl. You aren’t even ready to crawl. We need to fine tune your motor skills. Which means, suck it up and do it five more times.” Kanaya cocks her hips and narrows her eyes at you threateningly. You freeze and even John looks over at her. You go back to taking the riding gear off of John’s body, fully chastised, when Kanaya speaks up again, tone still sharp and commanding. “John, you can’t be so still. It makes it harder for Karkat. You need to follow his motions and move with him.” John clicks his jaws together and makes a snapping noise and Rose, although still a dragon, looks thoroughly amused by whatever he must have said.

After another half hour, you are ready to fucking throw the gear on the ground and storm off. Since John had actually started helping while you put on the gear you could now do it faster but that meant more repetitions of putting the shit on and then taking it off. The last strap is clicked into place and the gear is once again properly placed and your hands go to undo it because to be honest, you’ve been working on autopilot the last few minutes.

“That’s enough.” Kanaya’s voice snaps you out of it before you can fully undo you work and you turn to her.

“Huh?” Is your intelligent response.

“You can stop. It’s time to fly. Now, get on.” Kanaya smiles and gracefully sweeps herself onto Rose and if it were anyone other than her, you’d be embarrassed on how you basically scramble into the seat snuggly fit on John.

“So are we running the course?” You look over to the jade-blood who shakes her head.

“No. That’s walking. You still need to crawl. Just follow my lead.” She flashes a smile and Rose takes off without hesitation. You and John follow her up and they take off high above the pillars and nets. 

“You hear her, John.” You say and steer him after Kanaya. You fly straight for a while, still in awe over the sensation of being so high in the air, until Rose gently swerves to the right and rights herself immediately. You attempt the same and its then that you realize what Kanaya is talking about. Rose’s movements had been smooth and controlled as opposed to John’s jerky flight pattern. He’s still not used to letting you control and you aren’t the best at steering. Add those two together and you were a wreck waiting to happen. Your hand finds warm blue scales and you rub them lazily and immediately John relaxes.

You keep copying Kanaya’s movements and they aren’t as controlled but they aren’t as erratic and unsure as they were. That’s how you spend an hour, flying at a leisurely pace above the track. And not once do you get bored or frustrated. It’s almost saddening when Rose’s golden orange figure slips from the sky to land on the ground. You nudge John and he takes the hint and transitions downward. As the wind swirls around you, you feel something change in John. You notice he picks up speed and holds his wings closer to his body as he flies. The winds start whipping in your face and the ground is coming faster and faster.

“John?” You hesitate but he doesn’t stop. You grip the reigns as he lands and although it was smooth by all accounts—you’re a bit surprised that John managed to not jar your eyes out of their sockets with how fast he’d been going. Honestly, that was the best landing yet—he decides to be an ass and shakes you off from his back. Air escapes your mouth in a woosh as you fall to the ground. You throw a rock and a glare John’s way the second you sit up and he must be laughing because his whole body is vibrating and his eyes are alight and he’s giving you an expression akin to a smile—doesn’t work well with all those teeth though.

“Shut the hell up!” You throw another rock and storm off, leaving him stuck in the gear.

**Author's Note:**

> so basically, in this AU, dragons are a thing, Skaia is a country and the capitol city is Alternia where the little Miss Condy lives.


End file.
